• Published 23rd Aug 2021
  • 2,615 Views, 133 Comments

Project: Mars - Whirl Hoof



The remnants of life on Mars have been found. And it's far beyond what anyone could imagine.

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Dilemma (Outdated)

Amanda's head was abuzz on the drive back.

There were so many mysteries, so many questions, so many things that didn't make sense. Why did a creature on another planet breathe oxygen, for one? She wasn't an expert, but wasn't an oxygen majority on Earth a complete accident? The alien should breathe methane, or CO2, or not at all. Why oxygen?

How had the pod holding the alien worked for potentially billions of years? Surely, even the most efficient and long-lived power sources were long dried up by now. Were there more of these pods around Mars, waiting within secrets of secrets to be found? Could there be hundreds of survivors, just itching to be returned to a dead homeworld?

She had no clue.

The purple horse alien in question was currently sleeping in the passenger seat, blanket and mask still attached. Amanda had kept the drive slow- Mars dunes were chaotic enough as is, she didn't need to send the alien flying on a Martian speed bump, seatbelt or otherwise.

It hadn't been until now that the naut really looked at the alien. It was purple, with a deep blue and pink streaked mane and tail. Horn and wings. About chest height.

She thought the wings were rather pointless, until she remembered Mars had less than half Earth's gravity, so the alien very well might be able to fly under its own power. The horn was pretty apparent- used for goring and defense. She had no clue why the eyes were the size of bowling balls.

The alien horse had been awake for all of five minutes, jumping at every minute noise. But it must've had caffeine withdrawal worse than Omega, because it had passed out pretty quickly. She hadn't stopped glancing at it- how could she? A living specimen of some absurdly ancient Martian society. 'Prehistoric' was way too much of an understatement.

She still had no idea if bringing the creature back to the station was smart. For all she knew, it was waiting to infiltrate their core structures before imploding.

Yep, that sounded stupid. Unlikely.

More immediately and concerning: would the station materials be toxic to it? It had been sitting in the rover 'naked' the entire drive, and displayed no outward negative effects that she could recognize. But what if it was like cancer, only showing up ages later for a depressing and painful death?

That wasn't even considering alien microbes. Amanda's suit protected her, but the moment she brought the creature inside? She could keep her suit on, but everybody else was sleeping without one. History told what happened even between isolated humans and disease- she could scarcely imagine the devastation of ET diseases in either direction.

Or how Omega and her naut crew would react to all this. They'd likely call her insane, mad, stupid, perhaps malicious. She would be fired without a doubt, possibly kicked from Mars missions permanently.

Despite all this, Amanda Chorol continued driving.

-----

Now she was stuck.

Not the rover, but choices confuzzled her. Where to take the alien? The infirmary would be her first choice, but putting a possibly anxious and paranoid alien in a room with dozens of chemicals, drugs and medical tools didn't seem like the optimal path. But where else, then? Her cot? The storage and bot bay? Bio?

Actually, Bio didn't seem like the worst option. But if it was intelligent enough, it might recognize it at a lab and think it's being dissected or something. Amanda knew that wasn't the case, but the creature didn't.

And she'd rather not have a hole dug in her intestine by that horn.

She finished de-suiting, having set the sleeping(?) horse alien onto a nearby shelf. She couldn't stop glancing at it- how could she? The fact she'd found a living alien still hadn't fully processed, and even moreso that it was a unicorn-pegasus-horse thing. And was purple.

She also noticed some kind of... she wanted to call it "tattoo" on the thing's rear, but it might very well be a physical thing. She wasn't about to start groping a horse alien's butt to find out.

Despite her mind screaming at her that it was stupid, Amanda left the alien alone for the moment, while she investigated each room of the station, trying to find the most suitable place for the creature. At least the thing breathed oxygen and had a similar temperature limit to humans; she would've been a loss otherwise.

Comms, dispatch and command were immediate no-go's. She highly doubted the kitchen, mess room or bathrooms were a good candidate either. She wasn't about to take it into any cot besides her own, and even then it seemed... not good. The storage bay was probably fine, but she also didn't want an alien freaking out in an area with lots of delicate electronics.

So infirmary or Bio it was.

She idly grabbed a donut from the pantry as she passed by (thank you Earth shipments), then leaned against a wall, focusing more.

It was a tough decision, not least of which because both rooms had similar problems. Fragile equipment, the feeling of being a guinea pig, and the fact Amanda was neither a biologist nor a medical expert of any sort. She knew first aid, of course, but she doubted that would be enough.

After a few minutes of thought, she decided. She headed back, picked up the horse, and headed for the infirmary. Technically she should've had some sort of mask in case of alien germs, but that wasn't her highest priority.

Along the way, while carrying the alien, she noticed something strange: it felt like there was... some kind of invisible barrier between it and her. Like someone had stuck a really thin sheet of glass between the two.

Time to check that out later, walking now.

Pushing aside assorted medical instruments and containers, she set the horse down onto a counter. Mission accomplished.

Now what?

She scratched her head idly. She... actually had no idea. It was still sleeping, so she could analyze it more closely, but she really didn't want it waking up and thinking it was an experiment or such.

Then, all of a sudden, she came up with a monumentally dumb plan.

A dumb plan that might just be it.

-----

Dr. Steffan was not happy.

Not only had he had an exceptionally aggravating dream about magical ponies or some other nonsense (he blamed the recent cadaver discoveries), but one of the explorers had woken him up.

Talking about ponies. Or horse aliens. Tomato, tomato.

He desperately wanted to ignore her and go back to sleep, tumultuous as it was, but unfortunately Miss Chorol had been the one to discover not only the buried artifacts, but also the first to find the Martian catacombs. So her word was perhaps slightly less full of nonsense.

Putting on his glasses and grumbling, Steffan stood up and stretched, still in the half-awake state so common and eternal among the explorers.

Miss Chorol had said something about 'I really need a biology expert, right now'. He couldn't fathom why; they'd already been analyzing the Martian remains from weeks ago. But she was frantic and looked on the verge of panicking, which he certainly didn't need.

Stumbling and muttering under his breath, Dr. Steffan slowly made his way to the infirmary where Miss Chorol insisted her 'horse alien' was located. Before that, however, he made certain to grab a mug of americano.

Or maybe a few. He was tired.

Miss Chorol stood outside the infirmary entrance, arms crossed and tapping her foot. She kept glancing erratically between the approaching Steffan and into... something in the medbay.

Rolling his eyes, Steffan stepped in and-

He nearly dropped his mug.

Sitting there, in plain view, was an alien. A purple pony-like alien, with a horn and cartoonishly large wings, some sort of marking on its rear, and was currently sleeping. Or it looked like it.

He had to slap himself to be sure he wasn't still delirious. Nope, it was certainly still sitting there.

Of all things, the first to strike his mind was:

"You brought it into the station unsterilized?!"

Miss Chorol attempted to shush him, nodding to the sleeping ET. "Look, what would you have done if you found a living specimen of an ancient alien species? Leave it there? It was suffocating, Steff."

He dragged a hand over his face. There wasn't enough coffee on Earth for this. "So... it's alive. A member of one of those skeletons we found... is alive."

He rubbed his chin. "The fact it has both horn and wings is strange. We've only seen one other instance- in a cadaver, of course -and it was twice the size. Is this one immature?"

Miss Chorol shrugged. "That's what I woke you up for, I have no clue. I just found it underneath the crypt I found weeks ago. It was in what I think was a cryopod, but all the ones around it were empty."

Steffan narrowed his gaze. "And why exactly were you by yourself, at night, wandering the crypts?"

Before the explorer could argue, Steffan waved her off. "It's not my responsibility anyway. Let Omega lecture you about it."

Miss Chorol folded her arms, staring at the ET. "So... what do we do?"

Steffan wanted to make some remark, but he was just as lost. What should they do? In all the search for Mars life, they had definitely never expected to find a living specimen.

Steffan looked to the explorer. "Tell me what you know of it."

Miss Chorol put a fist to her chin. "Well, you can see clearly what it looks like. I know it breathes O2, because when it fell out of the pod, it began suffocating; I grabbed my spare mask and tank, and attached it to the alien. I also know it has a similar temperature comfort range to us, because... well, that's pretty apparent considering it isn't freezing or burning up."

Steffan facepalmed. "You randomly gave it a gas that is truly an anomaly even on Earth?"

"What else would I have done? Let it choke to death?"

"No, but... urgh. Just... grab my bag from the cots. I'll need to analyze it." Steffan grabbed a sterilized pair of medical gloves from a drawer.

The explorer shifted in place. "Is that... a good idea? If it wakes up, won't it think we're experimenting or... dissecting it?"

Steffan rolled his eyes. "It is half our size, and I've seen you lift one end of a rover. Physical safety is hardly a concern."

Chorol huffed. "Many things wrong with that. I was worried about it feeling safe, not whether I'd be attacked... mostly. And it's adapted to Martian gravity, I am not."

Steffan waved her away. "Just grab the bag."

She took one last glance at the alien before leaving, and froze.

"Steffan."

"Look, I said-"

"Steffan, look at it."

Grunting, he turned to the-

It had woken up.

And was staring at them.

Author's Note:

Okay, so:

this is definitely going to be my longest story so far. I don't know exactly, but I'm guessing it'll go above 10k.

For now it'll focus on Twi "officially" meeting the colonists, and I'll likely have an epilogue/end chapter at some point showing Equestria's side of things.